Brandon Whitehead Candidate Statement 2023

Brandon is a Senior Researcher in Environmental Data Science at Manaaki Whenua -- Landcare Research in New Zealand. His current work involves building vocabularies for data interoperability as well as richer semantic models intending to reflect aspects of domain knowledge. He is passionate about capturing and applying rich Earth and Environmental domain models for machine aided reasoning and discovery, and feels oddly compelled to increase the utility, and usage, of the SWEET ontology.

Brandon has been involved with ESIP for nearly a decade. He has participated in innumerable meetings and activities, which has afforded him opportunities to contribute to thought provoking discussion and bleeding edge projects. He is one of the original founders of EarthArXiv, contributes to the Semantic Harmonization Cluster as much as time will allow, and will complete his term as chair of the Semantic Technologies Committee this year.

There is massive opportunity within and around ESIP to share knowledge and align seemingly disparate streams of work under a more holistic view. Brandon’s experience, particularly in technical areas, will be of high value to the Board and he would serve the ESIP community well in the role.